No, it does not just work. It removes the option to install updates manually through GUI. If Firefox was running, the only GUI solution is to close it and wait 6 hours or whatever.

My wife was perfectly fine installing updates from the tray with Synaptic. The PC is always connected to the TV with Jellyfin left open in Firefox where she was watching.

So I switched to Manjaro to have a pretty OS that isn't getting rid of their package manager controlling the most used program.

Those are all valid points, but there's one more. As a person who is just coming back to Linux after 25-30 years and relearning it all from scratch, I just don't want the hassle.

Sure, there's overlap between distros, Linux is Linux, and any knowledge I might glean from Ubuntu would also largely apply to any other distro -- but why should I bother with investing time into a product that is already heading toward future politics and regressive policies when I can just install [NotUbuntu] and swerve the entire mess?

There are hundreds of distros from which to choose these days, literally. Why start with one that's already obviously moving toward the dark side? For all that I could just stay on Windows. I'm trying to get away from triple-E and paywalls and gatekeeping, not just find different ones.

Right now I'm testing out over a dozen distros on an old laptop in my spare time, and I think the only Ubuntu related one in my list is Pop!_OS, and it's there only because Pop!_OS doesn't rely on snap.

It’s one of those you should know what you’re doing situations

And I absolutely DO NOT, so that's that, lol. These days every brain cell counts, so damned if I'll waste any time wading into that mess.